Ashes to Ashes

Another holiday mixtape, this courtesy of one of rap's more theatrical MCs, doesn't reach the highs of Teflon Don, but its scope remains pretty epic.

Chances are Rick Ross and Barry White never met. But in a lot of ways, the two are kindred spirits. As two big dudes with booming voices and theatrical appetites, Ross and White have both taken what should've been limited styles and managed to transcend anyway, just by pushing those styles way beyond excess. White could make arenas ooze just by bellowing the word "love" over and over; Ross can emulsify car speakers just by roaring about all the drugs he's almost certainly never sold. And on "Even Deeper", a track from his new Ashes to Ashes mixtape, Ross sounds almost as comfortable on the smooth orchestral funk ripples of "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby" as White once did, with White's disembodied voice showing up to egg him on.

Ashes to Ashes comes on the heels of last year's Teflon Don album, the moment when Ross pushed his own zero-subtlety bark to insane levels of charismatic absurdity. Beyond the singles, Ross albums used to be grim trudges, but Teflon Don just about burst with indulgent decadence, Ross sharing million-dollar tracks with A-list guests and slurping up every minute of it. And it also had the identity-bending anthem "B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast)", rap's song of the summer. Ashes to Ashes is a free mixtape dashed off on Christmas Eve, in anticipation of yet another new album that's supposedly lurking just around the corner, and it's no surprise that nothing on it reaches the facepunch immediacy of "B.M.F." or the chiffon luxury of "Maybach Music III". But for a dashed-off mixtape, the scope remains pretty epic.

Ashes to Ashes has famous guests (T.I., Ludacris) and big producers (Boi-1da, Lex Luger), and its sonic depth and serious mastering job are enough to push it way beyond most mixtapes. But the mixtape's best moments come directly from Ross himself. Here, he continues to conjure hilariously larger-than-life ways to let you know he's spending more money than you are: "I'm still ballin' like I'm Bo Diddley! I park the Caddy in the living room!" On "Retrosuperfuture", he claims to be "skateboarding aboard the Pan American," and the image of Ross skateboarding anywhere, for any reason, is pretty amazing. Even Ross' dumbest moments are fun. On "John Doe", he says he's "jumping niggas like a chess piece," and unless he's talking about the knight, I'm pretty sure he's thinking of checkers. And on the chorus of the very first song, he rhymes "cell phone" with "iPhone"; he's almost certainly the only big rapper currently working who could get away with that.

The tape moves from bangers to slick, more meditative tracks before returning to bangers, and it might work better if it were all bangers, all the time. Ross knows he's onto something with "B.M.F.", and he sounds more urgent and alive over churning minor-key trunk-slams than over just about everything else. But other than one godawful chorus from the Chester French chump, the whole thing comes off slick and professional-- more than enough to tide the world over in the brief period between Ross albums. And it ends on a deliriously high note: "Another One", an early glimpse of Ross' new Bugatti Boyz duo with Diddy, one of the only guys alive who can match Ross in sheer, infectious money-zest. These two sound just awesome together, Diddy inhabiting Ross' flow and Ross relishing his violent punchlines just a little bit more. This guy is just having fun with us now.